Thursday, 22 December 2011

The UN's Executive Coordinator for the 'Rio+20' United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development has backed calls for road safety and sustainable transport to be included within any framework for sustainable development agreed at next year's summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Brice Lalonde (pictured), who is coordinating the UN team leading the Rio negotiations, told the Make Roads Safe campaign that
"Transportation is very important and is part of all
discussions on climate change, safety, sustainable cities, inter-city
transportation. And so suddenly this concern about road safety is becoming
something important which is going to be probably addressed in a much better
way than it was before, because it was more marginalised before”.

“I think the UN Decade for Road Safety and the Make Roads
Safe campaign are both very powerful initiatives and it is going to make a
difference. If we could try to address road safety at the same time as we
address the environment, the design, the architecture, the land used for the
planning of cities, if we can do that in a holistic way it is exactly
sustainable development. So I think it is going to make a difference this time,
I think it is going to be more central, as much as we can put it in the agenda
of Rio+20”.

The Rio+20 conference, twenty years on from the landmark Rio Earth Summit of 1992, is expected to propose new Sustainable Development Goals which could become the focus of the world's attention in the coming decades, complementing and eventually replacing the Millennium Development Goals, which expire in 2015.

Monday, 19 December 2011

Safe Kids Worldwide have implemented a child pedestrian safety initiative in Zhengzhou, China, in partnership with FedEx and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The initiative included the distribution of Safe Kid's road safety curriculum to 100 primary schools in the city. The Road Safety Fund is supporting Safe Kids Worldwide's international 'Walk this way' initiative through a $95,000 grant from FedEx.

Thursday, 15 December 2011

WPP, the world's largest advertising group, has highlighted the design of the Tag symbol as one of its major pro bono campaigns in its 2011 CSR report. Personally overseen by WPP's CEO Sir Martin Sorrell, some of WPP's top design agencies worked on ideas for an instantly recognisable symbol that could unite the world in solidarity for the UN's decade-long campaign against road death and injury. The resulting yellow 'Tag', from the clever and creative people at WPP agency The Partners, has since been beamed onto some of the world's most famous landmarks, worn by Presidents and Prime Ministers, featured in hundreds of events, been displayed on many thousands of jacket lapels and hung around a large number of necks across the globe.

Sunday, 11 December 2011

The Road Safety Fund has hosted a forum in New Delhi for major companies in India concerned about fleet safety. Organised by the Fleet Forum and the Global Road Safety Partnership, the seminar brought together companies included BP-Castrol, Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, UPS and Vodafone. Participants shared experiences and fleet safety management practice, and explored the potential for an alliance of companies to encourage improvements in vehicle standards, training and certification of drivers, and community engagement with road safety. India is on the frontline of the global road traffic injury epidemic, with currently more than 110,000 fatalities each year. For the companies that operate large fleets on India's roads, traffic crashes and injuries are a very real and significant issue. Details of the meeting will be posted on Fleet Forum's website soon.

Friday, 9 December 2011

Always Care. Always Wear a Helmet. This is the slogan of a new campaign launched this week aimed at motorcycle passengers in Cambodia. Currently, only 8% of motorcycle passengers wear a helmet, a major contributory factor to the 1,800 deaths and 6,700 serious traffic injuries in the country last year. The government is planning to introduce new legislation in the near future, and many road safety organisations and donors are working to support official efforts and raise awareness amongst the public. The 'Always Care' campaign, conducted by the AIP Foundation with Road Safety Fund financial support through a donation from the FIA Foundation, includes TV and radio advertising, billboards and public events. The impact of the campaign will be measured by another funding partner, the US Centers for Disease Control and Injury Prevention, working together with Handicap International. The campaign launch in Phnom Penh coincided with a 'Helmets for Kids' event, supported by the Australian Government and attended by the Prime Minister's Special Representative, H.E. Hun Manet, and the Australian Ambassador, Penny Richards. Campaigners are pressing for children (who are daily passengers on motorbikes in Cambodia) to be included in the new passenger helmet law.

Saturday, 3 December 2011

Top selling cars in Latin America offer levels of occupant safety twenty years behind the five star cars of Europe and the US, according to the latest 'Latin NCAP' crash test results, which are independent of the automotive industry. The New York Times describes the findings as 'grim' (subscription required to view). The Road Safety Fund will be supporting the work of the Global New Car Assessment Programme (Global NCAP), which includes support to Latin NCAP and a new ASEAN NCAP, from 2012.

Monday, 28 November 2011

We've published short introductory films for each of the five 'pillars' of the Global Plan for the Decade of Action on the Road Safety Fund website. You can also view them on Youtube (via the video bar at top right of this page, or here). Each film provides an overview of some of the key issues, and offers some of the practical injury prevention solutions that can be implemented, with sufficient resources and commitment.

Thursday, 17 November 2011

Vietnam has launched a major new three year campaign to increase motorcycle helmet wearing rates amongst its children. Recent surveys have found that, despite high levels of helmet use by adults, only a third of children riding as passengers on their parent’s motorbikes wear a crash helmet. Now the AIP Foundation is working with the country’s traffic safety agency, the education ministry and the police to target parents through awareness raising and high profile police enforcement. The first phase of the campaign will include leaflet distribution, community workshops and media advertising, with some of the funding for the initiative provided by Michelin Vietnam. The head of Vietnam’s National Traffic Safety Committee, Mr Than Van Thanh, describes the current road injury situation as “distressing…and detrimental to the development of the country”.

Renault, a Global Supporter of the Decade of Action, is launching a new educational programme "Safety and Mobility for all". The initiative, run in more than a dozen countries, provides educational resources for children, their parents and teachers encouraging young people to think about major challenges of road safety and sustainable mobility. See here for details.

Friday, 11 November 2011

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, has endorsed a new official report on global road safety which urges governments and the UN General Assembly to "acknowledge the importance of the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility and the Road Safety Fund, and the need to develop new funding mechanisms" in order to tackle the growing road injury epidemic worldwide. See the full report, Improving Global Road Safety, released this week, here.

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

As a first step in launching a national Share the Road project in Rwanda, a workshop took place on 11 October 2011 in Kigali, hosted by the Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA) in cooperation with UNEP. The meeting agreed to set up a multi-sector steering committee to implement a pilot project in Kigali showcasing infrasturcture for walking and cycling, with support from UNEP. The 'Share the Road' programme is initially focused on East Africa, in particular Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

Global malaria deaths were reduced by 20% during the UN Decade to Roll Back Malaria, according to a report today from the Roll Back Malaria Partnership. Political commitment and increased funding support resulted in "the rapid scale-up of a variety of malaria control interventions [that]saved an estimated 1.1 million lives in Africa alone..."

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

This is International Walk to School week when millions of children and their parents are encouraged to try using two feet instead of four wheels for the school run and hopefully develop a year-round healthy habit. In support of many more children - who always walk to school - this is a Week that reinforces the importance of providing safe routes to school, organising community support like 'walking buses', and promoting the basic essentials of sidewalks, safe crossing points and lower speed limits for vehicles.

Safe routes to school are one of the foundations of a sustainable transportation policy, and the Road Safety Fund is proud to be supporting the work of Safe Kids Worldwide and its 'Walk This Way' project in ten countries through a donation from FedEx. It is a fundamentally important policy issue but can also be a lot of fun, and there were events across the world to mark the International Walk to School week - including the walk in Washington DC attended by US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (pictured) - and we're grateful to our friends at Sesame Street for getting Grover along to meet the children at one school in New York City (also pictured).

Monday, 3 October 2011

Innovate Solutions, a Malaysian road safety consultancy and one of the Road Safety Fund's new country-level donors, has taken the Decade Tag symbol to heart. Innovate Solutions is promoting the Decade of Action via a poster and banner campaign across Malaysia, and sponsored the Mont Kiara football club in the recent Borneo Cup tournament.

Saturday, 1 October 2011

The Make Roads Safe campaign has launched a call for prioritisation of road safety and sustainable transport to be part of the policy outcomes of next year's Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Governments will meet in Rio in June 2012 to update the international sustainability agenda, twenty years on from the Rio 'Earth Summit' of 1992. The last equivalent meeting, in Johannesburg in 2002, played an important role in identifying priorities for the practical implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. To learn more about the 'Safer Roads at Rio+20' campaign visit the Make Roads Safe website or see the official Rio+20 website here .

Friday, 23 September 2011

UPS is the latest major company to become a Global Supporter of the Decade of Action. We were delighted to finalise and announce their contribution during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. See more here.

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

We are delighted to be working with the United Nations Environment Programme to invest in and promote cycling and walking. With predictions that global car use could double over the next ten years - with all the growth in developing countries - there has never been a more urgent need to make the case for sustainable modes of transport, particularly as the majority of the world's population will still never own or use a car. Providing safe and fair access to roads and urban space for pedestrians and cyclists is vital. Read more about our work to 'share the road' here .

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Nikki Jamal, winner of the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest, has lent her (very beautiful) voice in support of the Decade of Action for Road Safety.

Nikki visited the Fund office to give her backing to the global campaign to reduce road death and injury. She was crowned Eurovision champion in May this year watched by a live TV audience of 125 million people in more than 40 countries. She will play a leading role in Eurovision 2012 when it is hosted in Baku. Since she shot to fame she has worked closely with road safety campaigners in her native Azerbaijan, and is keen to use the platform of Eurovision to raise awareness:

"So many young people are affected by road crashes. They lose their own lives or their friends to this, or can be horribly injured. It is such a shame when these injuries are preventable. This Decade of Action can make a real difference".

Thursday, 8 September 2011

Congratulations to Greig Craft, president of the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, who has been awarded Vietnam's 'Friendship Medal', the highest civilian honour awarded by the Government of Vietnam. Greig, a US citizen, was presented with the award by Vietnam's Transport Minister in Hanoi in recognition of his contribution to promoting motorcycle helmet use in Vietnam for more than ten years. He played a leading role in pulling together the Vietnam Helmet Wearing Coalition which campaigned for and secured helmet legislation and enforcement, resulting in serious road injuries falling by more than 20%. The Road Safety Fund is supporting the work of the AIP Foundation, and its 'helmet vaccine initiatives' in SE Asia and Africa.

Tuesday, 6 September 2011

The role of the Fund is to encourage donations to support the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020. We are supported by companies big and small, philanthropies and generous individuals (you) who want to contribute to achieving the UN's Goal for the Decade: to save five million lives on the world's roads by 2020.

We'll be using this blog to update you on news and developments about the Decade of Action, the activities of the Road Safety Fund and some of the great work our supporters are doing and enabling.